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RomanticEdmund Spenser

Amoretti III: The Sovereign Beauty

The sovereign beauty which I do admire, Witness the world how worthy to be praised: The light whereof hath kindled heavenly fire In my frail spirit, by her from baseness raised; That being now with her huge brightness dazed, Base thing I can no more endure to view; But looking still on her, I stand amazed At wondrous sight of so celestial hue. So when my tongue would speak her praises due, It stopped is with thought's astonishment: And when my pen would write her titles true, It ravish'd is with fancy's wonderment: Yet in my heart I then both speak and write The wonder that my wit cannot endite.
CheerfulEdmund Spenser

Easter

MOST glorious Lord of Lyfe! that, on this day, Didst make Thy triumph over death and sin; And, having harrowd hell, didst bring away Captivity thence captive, us to win: This joyous day, deare Lord, with joy begin; And grant that we, for whom thou diddest dye, Being with Thy deare blood clene washt from sin, May live for ever in felicity! And that Thy love we weighing worthily, May likewise love Thee for the same againe; And for Thy sake, that all lyke deare didst buy, With love may one another entertayne! So let us love, deare Love, lyke as we ought, --Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.
ContemplativeEdmund Spenser

Sonnet 30 (Fire And Ice)

My love is like to ice, and I to fire: how comes it then that this her cold so great is not dissolv'd through my so hot desire, but harder grows, the more I her entreat? Or how comes it that my exceeding heat is not delayed by her heart frozen cold, but that I burn much more in boiling sweat, and feel my flames augmented manifold? What more miraculous thing may be told that fire, which all thing melts, should harden ice: and ice which is congealed with senseless cold, should kindle fire by wonderful device? Such is the pow'r of love in gentle mind that it can alter all the course of kind.
AngryEdmund Spenser

Sonnet 54

Of this worlds theatre in which we stay, My love like the spectator ydly sits Beholding me that all the pageants play, Disguysing diversly my troubled wits. Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits, And mask in myrth lyke to a comedy: Soone after when my joy to sorrow flits, I waile and make my woes a tragedy. Yet she, beholding me with constant eye, Delights not in my merth nor rues my smart: But when I laugh she mocks, and when I cry She laughs and hardens evermore her heart. What then can move her? if nor merth nor mone, She is no woman, but a senceless stone.
RomanticEdmund Spenser

Sonnet 75

One day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washed it away: Agayne I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tyde, and made my paynes his pray. "Vayne man," sayd she, "that doest in vaine assay. A mortall thing so to immortalize, For I my selve shall lyke to this decay, and eek my name bee wyped out lykewize." "Not so," quod I, "let baser things devize, To dy in dust, but you shall live by fame: My verse your vertues rare shall eternize, And in the heavens wryte your glorious name. Where whenas death shall all the world subdew, Our love shall live, and later life renew."
RomanticEdmund Spenser

Amoretti LXXIV: Most Happy Letters

Most happy letters, fram'd by skilful trade, With which that happy name was first design'd: The which three times thrice happy hath me made, With gifts of body, fortune, and of mind. The first my being to me gave by kind, From mother's womb deriv'd by due descent, The second is my sovereign Queen most kind, That honour and large richesse to me lent. The third my love, my life's last ornament, By whom my spirit out of dust was raised: To speak her praise and glory excellent, Of all alive most worthy to be praised. Ye three Elizabeths for ever live, That three such graces did unto me give.

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